1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to coating materials, such as for example laminar coating materials which can be used in the building and furnishing sector, in particular for the production of floorings.
2. Description of the Related Art
The wide variety of coating materials of this type so far available may be reduced to three fundamental categories.
The solution that perhaps dates back the furthest is the coating material commonly referred to as linoleum. The corresponding production technique basically envisages adding filler materials such as sawdust and cork dust, mineral fillers, pigments and other additives to linseed oil so as to obtain a so-called linoleum paste. This undergoes rolling in order to form sheets, which then undergo a so-called “maturing” step, which has a duration of some dozens of days and is essentially aimed at achieving a consolidation of the linoleum sheet sufficient to enable its further manipulation and treatment (for example, so as to enable its winding into rolls for subsequent laying).
Although this solution has a long history, it occupies quite a modest market share, both on account of the disadvantages linked to the intrinsic slowness of the maturing process and because, in the steps subsequent to laying, the linoleum flooring tends to release into the environment an intense and characteristic odour linked to the presence of the linseed oil.
A very substantial slice of the market of coatings and floorings is represented by synthetic plastic materials. One of the materials most widely used for making these coatings, which at present may have a contained cost, is represented by polyvinyl chloride (PVC). Irrespective of any other consideration, these floorings, and in particular the PVC-based ones, tend to be viewed with less favour on account of the substances (for example, chlorine) which may be released by the coating and which also have an unpleasant smell.
Over the last few years, rubber-based floorings have encountered particular favour. These floorings enable a combination of excellent characteristics of wear (for example, as regards resistance to mechanical stresses and to aggressive chemical agents, as well as to burns) with the possibility of creating coatings and floorings having a particularly agreeable aesthetic appearance (for example, with general marbleization effects or effects of seeding of granules of various colours). Examples of this prior art are described in the documents EP-A-0 968 804 and EP-A-1 020 282.
Even though to a much smaller extent as compared to the other types of coatings considered previously, also rubber coatings tend to have a rather strong and unpleasant smell, above all immediately following upon laying and on account of the substances used for vulcanizing the rubber.
Over the years there has been no shortage of attempts to merge features characteristic of the various production techniques considered previously. For example, described in the document EP-A-0 385 053 are linoleum coatings with rubber fillers, the main purpose here being to enable exploitation of the process of vulcanizing rubber in order to provide a linoleum coating which can be handled and transferred to the site where it is to be laid in a much shorter time as compared to the characteristic time required for maturing linoleum floorings of a traditional type.